


no sound but the wind

by swarmsoflizards



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Dark, M/M, Zombies, discussion of suicide, this shit is dark yo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4125871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swarmsoflizards/pseuds/swarmsoflizards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a young man in a rather violent world finds a purpose, falls in love, and does his very best to save humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no sound but the wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SuperFreakeh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperFreakeh/gifts).



> Congrats, Lindsay! You graduated high school! Take some blood and tears. <3

_We can never go home_

_We no longer have one_

_I’ll help you carry the load_

_I’ll carry you in my arms_

 

_The kiss of the snow_

_The crescent moon above us_

_Our blood is cold and we’re alone_

_But I’m alone with you_

__

-Editors, [_No Sound but the Wind_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xVl5a8YpI0)

\- - -

As the cold morning leeches into his bones, the sun just creeping over the horizon lighting the mist hanging in the sky, Shion takes one last, long look at his house.

It’s a ramshackle old thing, broken windows secured with duct tape and paint peeling in sheets off the walls, but it was certainly home. He and his mother had lived here for the last four years, becoming one with the neighborhood. His mother had baked for the locals when she could and Shion had spent time with the other kids his age rotating between their houses. Four years this had been _home_.

Now, it seems impossible. It’s filled with ghosts, now. The ghost of his mother, the ghosts of the neighbors, helping his mother with rolls in the kitchen or teaching him about the old world. Memories of how he used to be, oblivious, before the world dragged him into darkness kicking and screaming.

Shion turns, backpack heavy on his shoulders, and starts walking.

The neighbors had spoken, sometimes, when they thought he wasn’t listening, of what had become of Chronos. They said it was a haven for the rich, enormous walls keeping them inside and everything else out. It was still a functioning city, as far as anyone could tell, but nobody ever went in or out. Shion had always wondered how anybody knew, then, if anyone was alive, but he had never asked.

This is his only hope, now. The dream of a frozen city on the horizon where he might be able to do something, _anything_ , to help. If he doesn’t make it there, it will have all been a waste. He scratches the healing bite on his wrist.

\- - -

When his mother hadn’t come back after two days, Shion hadn’t been terribly worried. She’d taken longer on supply runs before.

After four days, dread started to pool in his stomach and made his chest tight.

After seven days, Shion was packing his own bags to go on his own supply run, fully prepared to never come back and not particularly caring. That was when the back door cracked open and a creature entirely _not_ his mother burst through. She came at him fast, screeching and snarling and scratching. Vicious, desperate, and petrifying.

Shion took too long to act. By the time he’d grabbed the handgun and flicked the safety off, the thing that used to be his mother had him pinned against the wall. She caught his wrist before he blew her brains out. They slumped to the floor together, blood and brain matter spattered across the dirty carpet.

Shion knew he was dead before he even pulled himself to his knees. His wrist was bleeding profusely, skin and muscle torn away. She must have just missed the artery, which he couldn’t distinguish between lucky or not.

He knew the exact way the next forty-eight hours would play out just like every other person in the world. First comes a fever, within twelve hours. Then come an intense headache and violent nausea. After twenty-four hours, confusion sets in. You become jittery and can’t settle down. Soon after come vivid hallucinations. After that, it’s very little time before you lose any higher thinking at all, becoming just vicious predatory instinct. You’ll tear into anything that moves, the virus’ way of spreading itself.

Shion resigned himself to death; he would hold out until the first symptoms set in, and then he would end it.

Except, the first symptoms never did set in.

Two days he waited, but nothing ever changed. He never got the first fever, never felt the first pangs in his head that meant the beginning of the end. It simply seemed to pass him over.

As soon as he decided he was healthy, he became determined to go to Chronos. Maybe they could study him, or make some sort of vaccine with his blood, or _something_.

He packed his bag.

\- - -

The sun is high in the sky overhead by the time Shion reaches the river that serves as the first marker on his crudely-drawn map. His mother had excellent knowledge of the world surrounding their little neighborhood, cultivated by traveling everywhere looking for everything. Anything even vaguely useful she would bring back to their little house, with a new x on the map in her head. But that was gone now, and Shion had to survive off what he remembered her talking about.

He wanders upriver for a ways, the sun traveling across the sky. He fills up several water bottles, making plans to boil them as soon as the opportunity presents itself. He drinks his own already boiled water sparingly.

The lower the sun gets, the darker and heavier the clouds get. As the first drops of rain splatter Shion’s shoulders, he hears thunder rolling in the distance. He wishes absently for an umbrella before pulling up the hood of his jacket. Lightning flashes on the horizon.

The rain quickly turns from summer shower to heavy storm, but Shion has nowhere to take shelter. He keeps walking.

A light makes itself known at the edge of the horizon. Shion thinks it grows larger faster than he can be getting close to it, and he has the fleeting thought that he simply skipped to the hallucination stage of the infection before he realizes what it is.

_Fire_.

The prairie is burning.

Shion is briefly grateful that he’s on the other side of the river from it before he recalls a particular piece of trivia; Zombies are incorrectly named. They are still very much alive, and still have enough human in them to string together very simple logic. Namely, that fire=people.

_Fuck_.

The fire is spreading absurdly fast, the fields sending up massive clouds of black smoke. If this doesn’t draw out zombies, nothing will.

The forest on his right seems like the only option, really. He ducks into it the first chance he can, trying to stay within view of the river so he doesn’t get too turned around.

By the time he sees it, it’s too late.

The zombie is on him before he can scream, tearing into his shoulder. He has a moment to think  _this is it_ before the zombie is suddenly torn away. He hears a thick, wet _thud_. A face appears in his blurring vision, and a sense of recognition worms into his head before he blacks out.  

**Author's Note:**

> The zombies in this fic are patients of a fictional strain of rabies. It may be a cliche, but I thought it worked perfectly in this situation for several reasons. 
> 
> A few years ago, the "Milwaukee protocal" was developed as treatment for rabies, which was essentially putting a patient into a medically induced coma and treating the symptoms of the disease as well as the disease itself with antivirals. 5 out of 36 people have survived the treatment, which is better than the previous 0. However, there's some evidence to suggest that the reason these people have survived is the presence of a certain antibody, which points to a genetic factor in how well the virus can be fought.
> 
> I thought having Shion being a carrier of that genetic "immunity" would be a reasonable way to have him survive! Of course, I vastly sped up the incubation period of the virus, not to mention the /entire lack of treatment/ he undergoes, but I couldn't find a way to make that happen (plus, it's kind of boring reading). Sorry my immunology isn't 100% accurate :P
> 
> Also, I wanted zombies that weren't actually dead. Having them be rabid makes them fast, effectively impervious to pain, and makes the easiest way to kill them be a headshot. 
> 
> Any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them!


End file.
